9 May 2015

At last Sunday evening’s service, and again on Wednesday night, I quoted John Stott on Living as the New Humanity. I promised to put the quote on the blog, so here it is. In the quote Stott uses the language of ‘new society’, but the meaning in the same – he also uses the language of ‘new humanity’ elsewhere. Anyway, here’s the quote…

We are God’s new society, a people who have put off the old life and put on the new; that is what he has made us.

So we need to recall this by the daily renewal of our minds, … thinking Christianly about ourselves and our new status. Then we must actively cultivate a Christian life.

For holiness is not a condition into which we drift. We are not passive spectators of a sanctification God works in us. On the contrary, we have purposefully to ‘put away’ from us all conduct that is incompatible with our new life in Christ, and to ‘put on’ a lifestyle compatible with it.

5 May 2015

Over the last couple of Sundays, I’ve been speaking on Jesus’s message of ‘the Gospel of the Kingdom’ from Matthew 4 and 5. One thing that you notice about the first chapters dealing with Jesus’s ministry is that Matthew summarises it in two places. First in 4:23:

And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

Then again in 9:35:

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.

Both summaries emphasise the same components to Jesus’s ministry: proclamation of good news, teaching, and healing.

The correspondence is striking between these two verses which are, let’s face it, quite far apart! That in itself reminds us that we need to be attentive when we read God’s word, and that only ever reading chapter-sized chunks can prevent us seeing these much broader connections. As I’ve said before, we need to read across the chapters, and we need to be able to pick out these significant ‘summary verses’. The Gospels are literature: they’ve been shaped, formed. The message isn’t just in the words themselves, it’s in the shape and the structure.

These two summaries in 4:23 and 9:35 point us to what lies between them. Between these two verses we find Jesus’s proclamation of the ‘Gospel of the Kingdom’ in the Beatitudes (5:3-12); Jesus’s teaching on the Kingdom in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount (5:13-7:27); and then a series of stories about Jesus’s healing of the sick and those under the influence of evil spirits (chapters 8 and 9). Within the brackets of the summaries we find Jesus’s proclamation, teaching and healing.

Right after the second summary (the closing bracket) we find these words of Jesus:

“The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”

Immediately afterward, The Twelve are sent out. The labourers are called to follow the example of their master. Jesus is the exemplar. Our ministry to the world should mirror that of Jesus: proclamation of the Good News of the Kingdom (and of Jesus as King), teaching about the Kingdom (and about Jesus as King), and practical care through which we declare the coming reality and goal of the Kingdom (and the heart of the King) in the here and now.

Firstborn

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-- all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. (Colossians 1:15-20)

Contact

If you'd like to get in touch, please email me: dafyddeglwys.at.gmail.dot.com